The meeting was called to
order by president N7GE at 19:05.Introductions were made and the treasurer report was given and accepted
as read.

The minutes of the last
meeting were presented with a motion by W4YMA to accept the minutes as read,
seconded by W7DHB.

Old Business

The repeater committee has
not had a chance to meet as Frank W7PAQ, the chairman, has been out of town.
The repeater committee will meet to discuss issues that have come up with the
linking on the 146.900 repeater.

The emergency phone tree was
created by Frank W7PAQ and copies were distributed. The phone tree will be
activated in the event of an emergency by the Red Cross, National Weather
Service or the EOC.

The Boy Scout JOTA is to be
held next weekend on the 21st and 22nd of October with
set up to start at 8:00 am. Frank W7PAQ, will have the operation under way at 9:00
am and run until 4:00 pm each day at the Fort Missoula. KPAX TV was contacted
to cover the event. The call sign in use will be K2BSA/7.

New Business

The ham fest in Bozeman is
to be held on Saturday October 14th.

The Christmas party is coming soon so a meeting place
needs to be secured. Any ideas would be appreciated.

The program for the next meeting in November will be
presented by Dennis W7DHB and he
will discuss the proper grounding of mobile antennas and the proper way to
provide power to the mobile transceiver.

Ideas are needed for programs to present on meeting night. Suggestions are requested.

A motion was made to adjourn
by Dennis W7DHB and seconded by Mike KE7IZG. The meeting was adjourned at 19:50
and Frank W7PAQ presented his program on DXing.

Last month’s Hellgate Static had some errors.Try as I might, errors do sneak in, and
unfortunately, they did last month.I
apologize for my mistakes and I have included the following note from Dennis,
W7DHB.

“I don't want to be
picky, but the last static had the following errors:

1)
The JOTA article is on page 102 of the September issue, not October.

2) Frank's call is W7PAQ, not
PQA “

Thanks for the
note, and for keeping me in line.At
least I know folks are reading the Hellgate
Static.

As
mentioned last month, I still need the club to send in their “Christmas want
list”.Like last year, price is not a
consideration.The worst thing you can do is not ask!Me, I guess I should ask for a proof reader since KE7FAH is busy
for the next several months.You might
need a visit from the spirit of Dr. Yagi, your own satellite that works on a 2
meter uplink and has a 160 meter downlink, a contest logging program that comes
“out of the box” with a “”7QP” form built in, an ARES net that 75 people check
into, or even something as simple as a new keyer.Let me know.E-mail,
phone, club meeting, or snail mail will get them to me.

It is getting that time of
year for another Radio class. However the ARRL has an offer that's hard to beat.
Their on-line class for Technician includes the book and a one year membership.
If you buy these items, you pay
the same price as they are offering the class for. I am encouraging anyone
wanting to get their license to take advantage of this offer. I will be glad to
act as a contact when they need some additional help but don't think formal
classes are needed. They can contact me at 777-2695 or at kc7zo@arrl.netNot that I want to give up on the
classes, how about a General class? If we have enough interest I will do that.
I don't want to do CW though so I need someone else to help. CW is best done
more often than a weekly class. Any takers?

To: ARRL Northwestern Division MembersFrom: Jim Fenstermaker K9JF -- Northwestern Division, Director
Bill Sawders K7ZM -- Northwestern
Division, Vice-DirectorSubject: October 2006
NewsletterDear Northwestern Division Members:The end of summer is passed and we're into the throes of fall. It's long
past overdue to update you on the various events and activities in and
affecting members in the Northwestern Division.I'm excited to
announce the new Division web site, which was recently redesigned and made
available to review. Note that we will complete the various sections
during the next few months. Please suggest changes and additions as you
review the content of the new site.Thanks to Rodger Alexander, KK7LK, for working on this project!Currently, Rodger along with Assistant
Director Michael Sterba, KG7HQ are working on additional enhancements to the
site. As you review their creation, please provide feedback to me about
additional topics you would like covered.The League recognized two of our Northwestern Division members this
summer.Roger Hayworth, KA7EXM was
awarded ARRL's Technical Excellence Award for 2005. I was honored to
recommend Roger to the ARRL Board for this award. Marv Loftness KB7KK
from Olympia, WA received a plaque for the best article in May QST.
Marv's article was “When Should You Call
the Power Company”.Congratulations
to both Marv and Roger!Congratulations are extended to the Radio Club of Tacoma on their 90th
anniversary. Only a few clubs in the USA have this legacy. This
club was formed in 1916 and became affiliated with the ARRL in 1920 as its 7th
affiliated club. During their celebration last Saturday, their
affiliation certificate was displayed with HPM's signature prominently
displayed. Development of the Legislative Action Process is nearly complete.
An explanation of the process as well as discussion why this is needed as well
as the implementation plan will be forwarded to you soon. In May and
June, members in ID, AK, WA, and MT were asked to contact their Senators,
requesting support of adding language supporting amateur radio to the Senate
Telecommunications Bill. Thanks to 155 of our members who
responded. Of the 551 letters generated nationwide, 28% came from our
division. That is an outstanding response from the Northwestern
Division. The Northwestern Division advocacy effort was noted and
discussed at the Board meeting. As we move forward, we will ask for your
support including contacting your local federal legislators and asking for
assistance for amateur radio related legislation. Given the current FCC
attitude, this is needed to insure our survival!Speaking about the Board meeting, Bill and I attended the meeting in
July in Newington. The highlight of the meeting was a Strategic
Planning exercise to guide the League during the upcoming year. Items of
emphasis include: Membership, Advocacy, Emergency Communication, Education and
Finances. I'll give you more details following the January board meeting
when the strategic plan is ratified.As you have undoubtedly heard by now, the FCC released the Report and Order (R&O) on October
10. A summary of this R&O can be viewed on the ARRL Web Site http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/10/11/100/. The most surprising portion of this pending
rulemaking is the expansion of the 80 meter band, especially in light of other
current users of a portion of this spectrum for nets and digital modes.
Comments regarding this proposed expansion as well as other elements of the
R&O can be made to the ARRL via e-mail to bandplan@www.arrl.org. In
addition, you can communicate directly to us at: K9JF@arrl.org
or K7ZM@arrl.org . As Bill and I will be continuing as Vice Director and Director through
2009, we encourage you to invite us to visit your local clubs and
activities. However, since I am not yet retired; scheduling is of utmost
importance to me. We will both try to accommodate your
visitation requests during the next three years.Don't forget that the Northwestern Division Convention will be held at
Seaside, OR on June 1-3. This is a date change from that appearing on
their program. Attendance at this gathering has remained steady at
approximately 2,200. Compare this to Pacificon in the SF Bay Area at
approximately 1,200. The Northwestern Division is Radio-Active!Thanks for your support. We will be in
touch again soon.73,Jim K9JFA word from your Vice-Director, Bill
Sawders, K7ZMEven though I was interested in assuming the position of ARRL
Northwestern Division vice-director, I was quite surprised to have been chosen.
There were several well qualified persons seeking the position.Being unopposed in this years election has
given me the confidence in knowing you have given me your trust in the
leadership team of Jim, K9JF and myself. As the Oregon section manager
(1998-2002) Jim and I worked very closely at times and this relationship will
continue as we strive to represent you as members of the American Radio Relay
League, Northwestern Division.I am very proud of the way the ARRL challenged the propose BPL
(broadband over power lines) rulings. However, when I watched our President
tell the nation that every single household in the United States will have the
ability to use the internet (with the use of power lines), I knew the FCC would
quickly hurdle over any and all objections. After all, you have to realize the
FCC Commissioners are made up of (mostly) lawyers and others who have very
little or no knowledge of communications and especially Amateur Radio. However,
in the future, I know any vast interference caused by BPL can and will be
pursued with help from the League. Quoting now, from one of our fellow ARRL
Division Directors:

ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is!
MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is!When visiting any of the major northwest ham fairs and conventions,
please take time out to visit the ARRL booth and say “hello”.73.
Bill, K7ZM

The September fire season was tough on many in our
state.Lots of smoke and ash to deal
with, not to mention high temps and winds that came along with them. Many
people suffered from breathing difficulties.There has been much activity in the new experimental band of 505 to 510
khz. These freqs are part of the old Maritime bands that were at one time
exclusively CW for communications with ships at sea. They were guarded by
those massive shore stations like KPH, KFS, WLO, NPD etc. This is a
special grant issued by FCC to the ARRL, who has licensed some stations with
beacon priviliges to provide information on propagation within this frequency
range for possible issue as a new band for Amateur Radio. If you are
interested, look up the 600 Meter Research Group on the Internet and read the
info contained there. A good converter for that range or a receiver
capable of good sensitivity around 500 KHZ will be needed. None of the
signals heard at this station have been strong, but down in the noise, as the
present power limit is 25 watts EIRP. A larger antenna or long wire is
helpful also. Reception reports
are always welcome.Don’t forget Bozeman's Hamfest the 14th of Oct.IMN-W5UYH, QNI-516, QTC-86
MTN-KD7HWV, QNI-2209, QTC-28
MSN-K7LMT, AE7V and others, QNI-9673 all,Doug, K7YD

If you are teaching or
mentoring (or learning!) Morse code, Ray G4FON has just released version 9 of
his Koch Method Morse trainer (http://www.g4fon.net).
He says that it features a more flexible user interface and a few other new
goodies, as well.

If you were working on
something at the same time you were watching the Cardinals and the Tigers duke
it out, does that mean you were doing it in parallel with the series?

From Gerry G0RTN's email
signature: "In days of old, when ops were bold, and sidebands not
invented, The word would pass, by pounding brass, and all were well
contented."Norm KA4PUV's radio club has just
completed a series of ten study guides for the Technician exam in PowerPoint
format. They can be used either for self-study, or in a classroom
setting. If you or someone you know can use these, they're offered to the
amateur community at no charge at: http://cnormany.googlepages.com/home
.

Top Band in
Sweepstakes? The band is little used, but definitely available, so Tree
N6TR suggests giving 160-meters a short, coordinated test run in the coming CW and
SSB weekends of Sweepstakes, the largest domestic US/VE contest. Tree has come
up with the idea of tuning down to 160 meters at "0200Z on Monday, one
hour before the end of the contest, when many of the Big Guns are hungry for
contacts and can tune down to 160 with their second radio." This is
something that everyone can try, so give a CQ to attract callers looking for
every last QSO. Tree also suggests staying below 1820 kHz to avoid QRMing the
usual DXing activity with this experiment.

Tired of RFI troubles in the
shack and around your home? Several have recommended the extensive and
detailed article for the Yankee Clipper Contest Club by Chuck W1HIS on using
common-mode chokes (http://tinyurl.com/qnzs3)
to deal with RF. By being proactive, you can make major improvements in
RFI from computing and network equipment and keep peace at home by reducing or
eliminating interference to audio and video equipment.

What is the most important part
of the contester's body? Your shack chair knows! Along those lines,
Chuck N7BV discovered Oregon Aero (http://www.oregonaero.com),
a company with a number of aviation accessories that are definitely useful in
the shack. For example, the Portable Universal Softseat Cushion might
help us with all those long hours of sitting during contests. The cushion is
designed to be removable and so you can take it with you to the big multi-op.
There are several varieties and styles. Ahhhhh!

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps
it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's
the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours
of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup
of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a
typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to
hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio
in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across
an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know
the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was
telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a thousand
marbles." I was
intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say."Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure
they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your
family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or
seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's
"dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that
has helped me keep my own priorities."And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand
marbles.""You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The
average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some
live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years."Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which
is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire
lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in
any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived
to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I
went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having
to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put
them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my
gear.Every Saturday since then, I have
taken one marble out and thrown it away.I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the
really
important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this
earth run out to help get your priorities straight.""Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and
take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last
marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday
then I have beengiven a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is
a little more time.""It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old
Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off.I guess he gave us all a lot to think about I had planned to work on the
antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work
on the next club newsletter..Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon
honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this
on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long
time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at
a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles...”

2007 Dues will
be due. Please
support the repeater system and club activities. Annual membership is
$25.00 ($5.00 for additional family members). Dues are payable to the
Hellgate ARC treasurer, K7PX, Steve at ripply1@msn.com. New members
may fill out the application membership
(available on the website or in the December Hellgate Static) and send it to us.

Remember,
your membership provides:*Maintenance and funding of
over a half dozen VHF/UHF
repeaters and emergency and portable repeaters. These provide wide-area coverage for emergency, public service, club events
and routine communications for all VHF/UHF
ham radio operators.

*Additionally, HARC maintains
portable and fixed HF communications equipment (radios, portable tower and antennas) for emergency, public service, and the
numerous radio communication events held throughout the
year.

December 1st and 2nd, is SKYWARN Recognition Day, a 24 hour
(0000-2400 UTC) demonstration of amateur radio capability and National Weather
Service cooperation. Hellgate ARC members and other participants are needed
to operated radio equipment from the National Weather Service office, just
North of the Missoula Airport Terminal off Broadyway. We begin to set up
on Friday and finish near 5PM, Saturday. Please help out and have
fun. Here's a SKYWARN information website, SKYWARN, http://hamradio.noaa.gov/.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Congratulations
Ed, KA7YUH and Betty, KA7YUI

A successful
examination session, Oct 16: two new generals, KA7YUH, Ed
& KA7YUI, Betty. Congratulations. Both, current
Technicians w/ code, had their necessary Certificates of Successful Completion
of element 3 dated prior to March 21, 1987 to qualify! Great record
keeping.

Our next
examination session is November 16, 6 pm
at the Missoula Public Library, 301
East Main Street.

If you are curious about taking an exam, check
out our website.We can schedule for
walk-in candidates.No pre-registration
is required, just bring your photo ID, a copy of your current license (if you
have one) and/or a copy of certificates of successful completion of examination
elements.Per the ARRL-VEC and
W5YI-VEC, the examination fee is $14.00.The complete question and answer pools are on the ARRL web site.

November kicks the contest season into full
action.By the time this gets to you,
the first of the Sweepstakes tests (CW) has already taken place.During the week of November 11-13, the ARRL EME
contest, the Japan International DX and the Worked All Europe DX (RTTY).During the weekend of November 18-20, the
second of the Sweepstakes tests is on the air.The phone bands will be crowded, but if you put out much of a signal,
most folks will love to work someone in Montana!The last weekend this month will bring the CW CQ world wide DX
contest.Early next month things will
continue with the ARRL 160 Meter contest from 2200 UTC on December 2 through
1600 UTC on December 3.This is always
a great time, stop in and work Steve KK7UV, and me if I can ever seem to get my
160 antenna back up!That same weekend
is the Skywarn Recognition Day (see previous article). It sounds like folks
will be showing up at the airport to help get HARC be back on the air
again.If you are curious about what
ten meters sounds like during the bottom of the cycle, check out the ARRL Ten
Meters Contest on the weekend of December 9-10.Several years ago I worked Bob, N7MSU during the beginning of the
contest and Europe the next day.Ten is
always a kick since you really never know where your signal will hit the
ground.True, the sunspots being gone
will mean the pile-ups of European stations probably won’t happen, but…. It’s a
fun one anyway.

We hope the HELLGATESTATIC was interesting for you this month.Let us know if this newsletter is to your
acceptance.So far, I’ve only heard good
things.If there is something YOU would like to see, or that you feel
is overdone, please let me know.This
is the Hellgate Amateur Radio Club newsletter, not mine!If you have something (even a simple one-liner)
please write to me at our address or e-mail me (Craig, KE7NO) at twincreek@blackfoot.net.

Hope that your antenna farm is better shape than mine
is!New “harmonics” will tend to rob
time away from what needs done outside.The discussion last month was very entertaining, I hope that we can keep
it up.If you have any idea at all
about a topic, let us know!We all know
each other, what a better time to begin your public speaking tour.Because it is “old hat” to you doesn’t mean
it would not be interesting for someone else.

With the Christmas party coming very soon, the
probability of a similar gift exchange to last year, and the need for new
officers, you are needed at the meetings.Plus, we haven’t seen you for a while.

I need your quick one liners for the December
“Christmas” wish list.Please send them
in.Plus, if I made any mistakes this
month, let me know.I try to make it as
clean as I can, but errors sneak through.